U.s. Must Give Priority To Commando Readiness

NUCLEAR WEAPONS are a comfort to world leaders and defense planners who believe the threat of mutual destruction will make it unnecessary to ever use them.

Their theory is sound. Only a combination of staggering mistakes, miscalculations and madmen could trigger a nuclear holocaust.

While concentrating on increasing the country`s stockpile of megadeath armaments, however, U.S. military leaders are neglecting a much more pressing need -- highly mobile commando forces trained to combat terrorists and take on other unconventional warfare assignments.

The Pentagon`s senior civilian in charge of special operations says indifference and, sometimes, active opposition by Army and Air Force officers have frustrated the Reagan administration`s five-year effort to create an efficient quick-strike force.

Noel C. Koch has charged that, primarily because adequate aircraft have not been provided to deliver units to their destinations, commando teams frequently have been unfit for combat.

The House Appropriations Committee, in a report based on Air Force data, backed up that assertion with the words, ``Half the forces are not combat- ready half the time.``

Because of the lack of cohesion and cooperation between the services, Koch says, few commando units are based overseas near potential trouble spots.

This weakness has never been more serious than it is now, with Arab extremists terrorizing innocent citizens in airports and on airplanes and cruise ships throughout the Middle East and in parts of Western Europe.

``We`ve got bands that are in a higher state of readiness than some of our special operations assets,`` Koch said, ``and that`s no joke.``

He`s wrong there. It is a joke. A very bad joke by a Defense Department that is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on exotic hardware that, in some cases, either doesn`t work or duplicates weaponry that already is available.

Today, a Libyan crackpot is threatening to mow down Americans and their allies on their own streets and launch World War III. Tomorrow it could be a Black September assassin or the leader of a Bulgarian hit team.

Skilled commandos, well-equipped and ready to move, are far more likely to be useful in such situations than MX missiles.

That such forces are not combat ready is a disgrace to the Defense Department and to the service officers whose apathy and egos have impeded the development of such forces.